Section 5
He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit." The Lord is the Word who is the eternal God (1:1). In the Gospel of John, the Word passes through a long process and even tually becomes the breath, the pneuma, that He might get into the believers. For the accomplish ment of God's eternal purpose, He took two steps. Firstly, He took the step of incarnation to be come a man in the flesh (1:14), to be "the Lamb of God" to accomplish redemption for man (1:29), to declare God to man (1:18), and to manifest the Father to His believers (14:9-11). Secondly, He took the step of death and resurrection to be transfigured into the Spirit that He might im part Himself into His believers as their life and their everything, and that He might bring forth many sons of God, His many brothers, for the building of His Body, the church, the habitation of God, to express the Triune God for eternity. Originally He was the eternal Word. Through His incarnation, He then became flesh to accom plish God's redemption, and through His death and resurrection He became the Spirit to be everything and to do everything for the com pletion of God's building.
Never forget that the eternal Word took two steps: the step to become flesh (1:14) and the step